After the Woods, by Kim Savage | Book Review #178

Julia did. When a paroled predator attacked Liv in the woods, Julia fought back and got caught. Liv ran, leaving Julia in the woods for a terrifying 48 hours that she remembers only in flashbacks. One year later, Liv seems bent on self-destruction, starving herself, doing drugs, and hooking up with a violent new boyfriend. A dead girl turns up in those same woods, and Julia’s memories resurface alongside clues unearthed by an ambitious reporter that link the girl to Julia’s abductor. As the devastating truth becomes clear, Julia realizes that after the woods was just the beginning.”

Trigger Warning: Emotional Abuse, Kidnapping, PTSD, Murder.

There is little I can actually say about After the Woods for fear of spoiling the book for you. This book may contain spoilers. (Short review)

As far as Young Adult Mysteries go, After the Woods was an alright one. At the same time, I can tell you that I both enjoyed and didn’t really like this book. Honestly, After the Woods is bittersweet.

On the one hand, you have the main character, Julia, living with her PTSD after the attack. Julia doesn’t want to deal with any of this, and instead uses a lot of her own energy and time to investigate her own disappearance and attack. Julia ends up questioning a lot of things, and as time goes on, she subconsciously questions who her friend is.

After finding out that Julia’s friend isn’t at all to be who she thinks she is, Julia is almost desperate for answers. Almost dying to get them, she learns that her friend is entirely troubled, but ultimately says nothing.

Ultimately my predictions were right. Finding that After the Woods was predictable was kinda upsetting, because while I did enjoy the few parts I couldn’t predict enjoyable…the fact that I could predict the ‘big’ parts of the story dulled the rest of the book for me.

I found the writing in this book great though. Even though After the Woods was predictable, Savage’s writing made me think and re-think what would or wouldn’t happen. Savage’s writing made me question everything I had predicted, and then some.

Welcome!

Hello, my name is Adele. I’m a 20-something year-old bibliophile, living on the West Coast of Canada. Here, on Adele Is Reading, I mainly post book reviews and bookish related content talking about the books I’ve read.
I mostly read Young Adult (YA), New Adult (NA), but I tend to branch out into other points of view (genres) as well.